Summary of ANSI Z39.25-1975 standard: transliteration of Hebrew

The complete original document can be obtained from the American National
Standards Institute (ANSI)

For the ISO standard for binary representation of Hebrew, check out
ISO-
8859-8.

Blue letters are printed (sans-serif), red letters are handwritten.
For those letters which have a different form at the end of a word (i.e.
kaf, mem, nun, pe, tzadi) the "sofi" (final) form appears leftmost. Note
that a final "kaf" is always a "chaf", and a final "pe" always a "fe".
If an "imported" word happens to end with a "p" sound (e.g. endoskop) the
"non-final" letter is deliberately used at the end of the word.

Note 29.11.98: draft ISO standard column added (based on
article)
in Ha'aretz weekend supplement, 27.11.98). The ISO standard, being drafted
by a team led by Technion Prof. Uzi Ornan, is intended
not for ease of reading but for complete reversibility, including the storage
of Hebrew documents in 7-bit ASCII representation .

Hebrew latter

Name of Hebrew letter

General purpose

More strict

in TeX type:

draft ISO/TC46/SC2 standard

remarks

aleph

(nothing)

'

'

`

vowel stop letter

bet

b

b

b

b

without dagesh: vet

vet

v

v

v

b

gimel

g

g

g

g

g as in goal, grand

gimel-tchuptchik

j

dzh

j,dzh

g'

English J as in John, Russian Dzh as in Dzhuk

dalet

d

d

d

d

hey

h (*)

h (*)

h (*)

h

(*) or nothing if silent hey (at end of word)

vav

v, o, u

w, o, u

v, o, u

w, o, u

o or u if used as vowel

zayin

z

z

z

z

zayin-tchuptchik

zh

zh

zh

z'

French j as in jardin or Jabotinsky, Russian zh as in Zhukov or Zhabotinskii

chet

ch

h

\d{h}

x

soft ch as in Bach, Dutch g

tet

t

t

t

@

obsolete: tt

yud

i,y

i,y

i,y

i,y

dep. on context

kaf

k

c

k

k

without dagesh: chaf

chaf

ch

kh

ch,kh

k

harsher "kh" sound like in Loch Ness, Tutankhamon; Dutch "ch"

lamed

l

l

l

l

mem

m

m

m

m

nun

n

n

n

n

samech

s

s

\d{s}

s

obsolete: ss

ayin

`

`

&

vowel stop (Ashkenazi), deep throat sound (Oriental)

pe

p

p

p

p

without dagesh: fe

fe

f

ph

f,ph

p

tzadik

tz,ts

z

\d{z}

c

German z as in Weizmann, Zimmer; Polish c

tzadik-tchuptchik

tch,tsh

ch

tch,ch

c'

Russian Tch as in Tchaikovski

kuf

k

q

k,q

q

deeper than k (Oriental pron.)

resh

r

r

r

r

rolling r

shin

sh

sh

sh

$

without mappik: sin

sin

s

s

s

$'

s as in Israel

tav

th

t

t

t

in Yiddish: pronounced as s

The "tchuptchik" is an apostrophe which, when added to the letters gimel,
zayin, and tzadik, produces three new letters which are used in modern
Hebrew to represent foreign sounds (in words borrowed from French, English,
Russian, ...) that do not exist in Biblical Hebrew. (Recently, I've seen
the English "th" transliterated in Hebrew subtitles as tav-tchuptchik.)

The standard pronunciation of modern Hebrew is a simplified version
of the Sephardi pronunciation: in particular, the kaf-kuf, chet-chaf, and
tet-tav pairs are pronounced identically and the alef and ayin are both
silent vowel stops.

In the speech of Israelis originating from Arabic-speaking countries,
one does hear distinctions between kaf vs. kuf and chet vs. chaf, and the
ayin is pronounced as a deep sound in the throat. These are residues of
distinctions which are fully functional in Arabic. Many philologists regard
the Teimani (Yemenite) pronunciation of Hebrew, which has even finer distinctions,
as being closest to how Biblical Hebrew probably sounded.

Rules of thumb for the opposite direction (and for spelling
words borrowed from Greek or Latin in Hebrew) include t being transliterated
as tet (e.g. universita), th as tav (theorema), German "au" (a sounds that
does not exist in Hebrew) being transliterated as aleph-vav, and German
"ue" (likewise nonexistent in Hebrew) as "i" (like in Yiddish)